Returning to Manuel's residence brought no relief.
If anything had changed after the exam, it was not for the better.
The place was silent—thick, heavy silence, as if the walls themselves knew something had broken. No one raised their voice. No one moved more than necessary. Even the servants walked carefully, avoiding noise.
Almost everyone was there.
Manuel stood upright, his back straight but his shoulders sagging, as though he were carrying a weight he could not set down.
Johana sat with her hands tightly clasped, her gaze fixed on the floor.
Liora remained nearby, close enough to intervene, yet not touching anyone.
Pedro Arias and Silvia watched in silence.
Miladiz did not take her eyes off her daughter.
Alexander stood slightly apart, his face more exhausted than usual.
Yeimi lingered in a corner, uneasy, unsure where to look.
Only one was missing.
Cael had not returned.
From one of the open windows, the sound of distant footsteps could occasionally be heard—steady, firm steps. Cael was walking without direction, unable to remain in that place after what had happened.
The silence stretched on too long.
Until Pedro Vides spoke.
"This…" he said, his voice low but firm, "should not have been done this way."
Everyone looked up.
Pedro V did not shout. He did not strike the table. He did not raise his voice. And yet, his tone carried more weight than any outburst.
"When I first heard the idea," he continued, "I thought it was born of the moment. Of fear. Of the atmosphere in that meeting. I thought… you wouldn't take it that far."
His gaze moved around the room, stopping on Manuel, then Liora, and finally Johana.
"I was wrong."
His jaw tightened.
"You didn't just follow through with it. You put it into practice long before the exam."
The air seemed to grow heavier.
"Cael is right," he said bluntly. "And that's what hurts the most to admit."
Johana slowly lifted her head.
"You condemned him," Pedro V continued. "Not because of the seal. Not because you saved his life. That was inevitable."
He paused briefly.
"You condemned him by the way you did it."
His eyes hardened.
"You brought him to an exam knowing exactly how it would end. You let him insist. You let him ask. You let him believe he was failing… when he never had a chance to succeed."
Pedro V stepped forward.
"And it didn't start today. It started earlier. In the training. In the evasions. In the looks. In the silent rejection."
The silence in the room became unbearable.
Manuel closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.
"The decisions we made…" he said in a low, weary voice, "were ours. And the consequences… will be ours as well."
He did not lift his gaze.
"I'm not looking for excuses. There are none."
His hands clenched into fists.
"I only know that none of this was easy. And yet…" his voice cracked slightly, "I can't deny that we failed."
Pedro Vides then turned to his daughter.
"Johana."
She tensed.
"I don't reproach you for wanting to protect your son," he said. "I reproach how you did it."
Miladiz held her breath.
"You began distancing yourself from him even before the exam. You taught him to feel that something was wrong with him… without ever telling him what it was."
Pedro V's voice did not tremble.
"That is not protection."
Johana pressed her lips together, unable to respond.
Outside, Cael's footsteps stopped for a brief moment… then continued.
The weight of what had happened could no longer be hidden.
And the worst part of all…
was that Jhosep was not there to hear any of it.
The garden was bathed in the warm light of dusk.
The sun descended slowly, painting the sky in soft oranges and long shadows. The air was calm, stirred only by a light breeze that rustled the leaves.
Selene was swinging hard.
"Higher!" she laughed. "Look, nii, look!"
The swing rose and fell, her feet nearly touching the sky for a second before dropping back down. Her laughter was clear, pure, full of life.
I sat nearby on the grass, my legs drawn in, my hands resting against the earth.
I didn't say anything.
My eyes looked forward, but I wasn't seeing the garden. I was seeing something farther away. Something older.
Selene didn't notice anything strange.
She kept swinging, pushing herself higher, focused on gaining height, on feeling the wind against her face.
I, on the other hand, was very still.
Too still.
Inside, my thoughts wouldn't stop.
How curious…
In my past life, it had been the same.
There was always something. Always someone. Always a precise point where everything twisted.
It didn't matter how much I tried to fit in. It didn't matter how much I endured. It didn't matter how many times I thought this time would be different.
In the end, something appeared.
And broke everything.
In that life, they told me I was strange. That I didn't belong. That something was wrong with me, even if no one could say what.
Here… at least there was a reason.
You were born without mana.
A phrase. A fact. A clear explanation.
And yet, the result was the same.
Rejection.
Silence.
Averted gazes.
I didn't hate my parents.
I truly didn't.
I didn't blame them. I didn't resent them. I didn't think they were cruel.
I knew—or wanted to believe—that they hadn't told me out of fear. To protect me. Because they didn't know how to say it without breaking me.
I understood that.
But it didn't make it hurt any less.
What weighed on me the most wasn't being born without mana.
It was the feeling that, no matter how many times I lived, something in me would always end up being the problem.
As if my very existence carried an invisible fracture.
Not because I wanted it.
Not because I did something wrong.
Simply… because.
Maybe it's me.
Not my parents. Not the world. Not mana.
Me.
Maybe there would always be something in me that turned my life into misery. Something I was born with, regardless of the world I appeared in.
Selene slowed the swing a little.
"Hey, nii," she said suddenly. "Are you okay?"
I looked at her.
She was smiling, a little tired, her hair messy from the wind.
I nodded slowly.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm fine."
It was a lie.
But not entirely.
I wasn't crying. I wasn't screaming. I wasn't broken on the outside.
I was just… tired.
Tired of starting over.
Tired of hoping this time would be different.
Tired of realizing that, even in another life, the ending always seemed to point to the same place.
Selene pushed herself again on the swing.
"When I grow up," she said, "I'll push you even harder. So you can go higher than me."
I watched her rise and fall.
She still didn't know anything. She didn't know about seals. About absent mana. About impossible decisions.
And for a moment, I wished I didn't know either.
The sun finally disappeared.
Shadows slowly covered the garden.
That was when I heard footsteps approaching.
I lifted my gaze slightly, thinking it was my mother.
But it wasn't.
It was Cael.
He stopped a few meters away. His expression was serious—very different from the first time I had seen him, when his gaze had been relaxed, almost mocking.
Now, there was none of that.
He approached without a word and sat on the empty swing beside Selene's. He planted his feet on the ground and began to sway slowly.
Selene glanced at him.
"Uncle Cael," she greeted. "Do you want to push higher?"
"Later," he replied. "You keep going."
Selene pushed herself again, unaware of the weight that had just entered the space.
Cael swayed a little more.
Several minutes passed in silence.
"Jhosep," he finally said. "Do you understand what Alexander told you?"
The question hit harder than I expected.
I didn't lift my head. I didn't answer.
Of course I understood.
Mana wasn't just energy. It was identity. It was life. It was the bond that tied all beings to the world.
Not having it wasn't a simple difference. It meant being outside.
Cael continued, without looking directly at me.
"Every living being has mana," he said. "A lot, a little—it doesn't matter. Even in quantities so small they're barely felt."
He swayed again.
"A spark. A drop. Something."
The swing creaked softly.
"But you don't have even that."
My fingers slowly closed around the grass.
"Not the smallest drop."
I stayed silent.
Cael tilted his head slightly toward me.
"Do you know why?"
This time, I answered.
My voice came out low. Calm. Almost empty.
"Because I was born."
Cael stopped swinging.
The swing remained still, barely rocking.
He nodded slowly.
"That's right," he said. "Because you were born."
There was no mockery in his voice. No anger.
He said it as if stating an unavoidable law.
Selene kept swinging, unaware of everything.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Cael continued. "You didn't fail. You didn't make a mistake."
He looked at me for the first time.
"You were simply born this way."
Something tightened in my chest. Not pain. Not sadness.
Something colder.
"That makes you, in this world's eyes… someone miserable."
He didn't try to soften it.
"An error to some. A disgrace to others. A dangerous curiosity to the worst."
The swing came to a complete stop.
"They'll look at you strangely. They'll avoid you. Point at you. Hate you without knowing you."
My nails dug slightly into the dirt.
"Not because you're weak," he added. "But because you exist outside what they understand."
He was silent for a second.
"And I want you to understand something now, not later."
He leaned forward slightly.
"If you accept that you're miserable… if you believe it… if you break because of it…
then they will have won."
He didn't raise his voice.
"Mana doesn't define you," he said. "But how you face not having it… does."
He leaned back on the swing.
"You have two choices."
He raised two fingers.
"Wait for the world to show mercy."
He lowered one.
"Or accept that you were born at a disadvantage… and still refuse to bow your head."
He held my gaze.
"Not to prove anything to them.
But to keep them from breaking you."
He stood up from the swing.
"You are miserable in this world's eyes. Accept it."
He turned slightly.
"Now decide what you're going to do with that."
Cael walked away along the garden path, leaving behind the slow creak of the swing.
Selene was still there, swinging, unaware of anything.
I didn't move either.
The words didn't hurt immediately.
They didn't explode.
They didn't scream inside me.
They simply… stayed.
Heavy.
Clear.
Unmovable.
It was as if my mind had entered a strange silence—too still to be peace, too lucid to be confusion.
Everything Cael had said fit with frightening precision, like pieces that had always been waiting for this moment to fall into place.
The looks.
The excuses.
My parents' fear.
The exam.
Mana.
None of it was new.
It was just the first time everything was together.
I didn't feel anger.
I didn't feel like crying.
I felt something worse.
Complete understanding.
And in that state, motionless beneath the darkening sky, I understood that I had crossed a line from which there was no return.
Not because I had made a decision…
But because the truth, once seen, could never be forgotten.